I was shocked to read the news that Michael Jackson died yesterday after suffering a heart attack in his home in Los Angeles.

Despite all the controversy in the past decades, Michael Jackson was a true music business phenomenon. Kick starting his career with the Jackson 5 at the young age of five, then moving onto release the most successful album of a solo artist with Thriller and selling out tour after tour, Michael Jackson become The King of Pop, an iconic brand in the business. Whatever he touched turned into gold. The King of Pop didn’t need a big marketing machine behind the brand to sell albums and concert tickets. Michael Jackson was the marketing.

Source: lancedrummondsmusic.wordpress.com

Time Magazine proclaimed Michael Jackson, “A one-man rescue team for the music business.” Okay, that was in 1984. But still, Michael sold 750 million albums throughout his career. His planned tour for July 2009 had set a new record as the fastest selling concert of all time. Tina Kells wrote on NowPublic.com, “Selling at a rate of 11 tickets per second all shows sold out completely at a startling rate prompting Ticketmaster director Chris Edmonds to comment, “this week we have witnessed a live entertainment phenomenon.” 360,000 tickets were sold by pre-sale before buying was opened to the public on Friday morning.  More than 750,000 fans from around the world purchased blocks of seats for the London shows.”

The only time I saw Michael Jackson live was in 1997 on his History Tour in Basel, Switzerland. I remember it was a rainy day and Michael’s gig was in an open air stadium. Right when his show started the sun came out and his 150-minutes show amazed an audience of about 50,000. It was pure A+ entertainment like I had never seen before.

Michael Jackson will be remembered as The King of Pop. The man who did the Moonwalk. The dancing zombie in Thriller. The artist with the funky gloves. The singer who wanted to Heal The World. And the human being who said, If you’re thinking of being my brother it don’t matter if you’re black or white.

The Product is the Story

Many of you know that I pass through Zurich station many times a week. Since Zurich station is a great place for companies to promote their products, promoters give away different samples on a regular basis. I wrote about Emmi’s Emminent drink and how their promoters did a great job in their remarkable outfits. Coca Cola Zero is another brand that inspired me to write about it, especially since they did kind of a bitter tasting promotion, in my opinion.

Last week, it was the turn of Carpe Diem and the release of its new drink. The company didn’t do anything funky or extravagant. Their promoters simply handed out a 5 deciliters PET bottle like the one that can be purchased in a store. No flyers, no questions, no email address you had to give them in return. Giving away for free the exact product one can buy in a store, gives potential customers the exact feeling of drinking half a liter of Kombucha they would actually buy. This provides the most authentic experience of drinking the Carpe Diem drink.

This was the very first time I tasted Kombucha. I quickly realized that I liked it and told myself that I’m going to have it again. If that is the feeling I get when drinking Kombucha, I’ll be satisfied. That 5 deciliters free PET bottle satisfied my thirst and gave a huge value to the Carpe Diem brand. Ever since I commute to Zurich, Coca Cola Zero has given me a few of samples, but never satisfied my thirst. In addition, the samples were either to small, I was distracted by flyers and games, or the promoters were not friendly.

In this case, I learned that not making up  a story when the product is the story is a strategy that works very well for me. Kombucha definitely tells a story, and by letting potential customers experience the story, you might find the right early adaptors that will tell your story in your name. Like me.

Last week, my friend Warren called me to talk about bringing a solo-bass artist to Switzerland for a concert dedicated to bass players. Being a full-fleshed bass player myself, I promised him our help. We at NEO*DMC believe that the smaller a niche is, the more interested and supportive its followers are. A logic consequence is to give followers a reason to meet and share their passion. Like in Warren’s case, a concert by solo-bass artists.

For more than 10 years so-called “bass day” events were organized all around the world with considerable success in regard to the market size of its niche. Bass players seem to be even more eager to visit bass workshops with world class bassists such as Billy Sheehan, Michael Manring, and Markus Setzer, than going to concerts. The bass niche seems small compared to the guitar market. But like all small tribes, bass players are connected through a very unique bond — similar to the ukulele players tribe.

Seth Godin writes in his marketing-classic Purple Cow, “[W]hat’s missing isn’t the ideas, it’s the will to execute them. … [I]t’s safer to be risky.” Very true. This is why NEO*DMC is supporting Warren with his project. There are already many music agencies bringing popular bands and artists to Switzerland to fill large mainstream venues. Hence, there is no need for us to do the same. My friend Theo and I share the opinion that it is rather difficult to make short-term profits with niche concerts, but if set up right, it is more rewarding in the long-run. Why? Because you attract innovators and early adopters in the beginning and they will tell their friends to join next time, and their friends’ friends will join the next-next time, and a sustainable growing tribe will build up.

Sure, this is the best possible scenario and it takes a lot of time and effort to build up such a tribe. Nonetheless, it is the most sustainable way to foster a relationship between a brand and its followers.

Just about six months ago, I wrote a blog post on how Coca Cola Zero was distributing drinks at Zurich station (read here: post 1 and post 2). Yesterday, the company did the same again with a few changes:

1. Cans distributed by promoters got smaller. Yesterday’s promotion included giving away aluminum cans of 0.15 l, when six months ago they were almost twice as big. Most probably, Coca Cola was afraid of pressure from its own customers (Coca Cola sellers) selling Coca Cola Zero in and around Zurich station. I actually like this idea. 0.15 l feels more like a sample than 0.25 l. Nonetheless, I disagree with distributing aluminum cans, since it is not very “green”—a small PET bottle or Tetra pak could be even cooler than a standard aluminum can and more eco-friendly.

2. Coca Cola Zero handed out flyers promoting an online game with the opportunity to winning a Guitar Hero game. I know what a Guitar Hero game is, but do all the others who got that flyer know? This is my wild guess, but most people lining in front of the so-called Coca Cola Zero Swat Team, simply wanted the free 0.15 l sample and couldn’t have cared less for the online game. Many flyers were lying on the ground, which underlines my guess.

3. As mentioned above, a Coca Cola Zero Swat Team was formed and can be met in major Swiss locations—The flyer says, The team is on tour! Unfortunately, I couldn’t really figure out why I should follow the Coca Cola Zero Swat Team on tour. Am I going to get more 0.15 l cans if I meet them again? Or, can I ask for more flyers so that I don’t forget to play online and possibly win a Guitar Hero game?

Wrap-up: The idea of the 0.15 l-sample is okay, but could be better if it was a more eco-friendly container. The flyer promoting the online game should be more specific and catchy. It simply looks like a flyer promoting Coca Cola Zero, not the game. The Coca Cola Zero Swat Team is a good idea as well, but it needs to be clearly branded for customers to understand what it is and what the benefit of following them is.

To be fair, Coca Cola Zero is well positioned and many people drink it. The millions spend on ads and commercials clearly make their point. What I disagree with is that a lot of marketing money is wasted on promotions that make no sense. And handing out a sample after a couple of years of that products introduction will not turn any non-Coca Cola Zero drinker into one.

I like searching for songs on YouTube, because I keep finding material I would never had thought of searching for, like Hamasaki Ayumi’s Rule, the Dragonball Evolution theme song. Unfortunately, most Rule videos have no audio, because AVEX Entertainment, Inc., a Japanese major record corporation and owner of the rights of the song, have ordered anyone to take down the song. I know, I know, they are entitled to ask for that, because they own the rights and “those YouTubers” simply stole the song for making a great fan video. But having fans making these videos, wouldn’t that be free promotion, especially since I couldn’t an official music video to Hamasaki’s song?

After clicking on three different videos tagged as Dragonball Evolution theme song that had no audio, I thought for myself, “This is an idiocy! AVEX just lost a customer. Why should I buy a song on iTunes that only gives me a preview of 30 seconds?” I kept searching, just for the sake of it, and after a while, I found the song in full-length. Most probably, AVEX didn’t find that one yet. Otherwise it wouldn’t be up.

In my opinion, record companies shouldn’t try to fight YouTubers. Fan videos are among the best promotion an artist can get. Fans spend hours giving their best making the great fan videos and want to share them with their friends and anyone who is interested. If you order your followers to take down part of their creation, they will be hurt. I am disappointed to see companies not recognizing the work and input of their fans. Particularly, because these fans are usually very loyal customers as well. I say, “If someone wants to work for your company for free, let them!”

As posted on NeoDMC.com. 

The Ultimate Fan Experience

I posted the following questions in the Music and Marketing group on LinkedIn and a great discussion started: Since physical CD sales are steadily decreasing, what can we do? Sell music only in digital form? Or, give it away for free to promote concerts and merchandizing? – Executives in the music industry have been discussing these questions on and off and it seems that no one has been able to come up with a sustainable business plan that fits all needs. Here a few comments I would like to share with you:

Free Music
“I agree with creating more content for mobile and increasing the number of products available for merchandising. I also think that one or two free tracks in exchange for contact information or another action fro the consumer is worth doing, “ replied Jamison Antoine from Universal Music Group. Bill Murphy, owner of Purple Crayon Direct, an arts-marketing agency in Grand Rapids, Michigan/USA, comments that giving away music for free is a massive mistake, since one establishes a precedent: Once free, always free. Only artists that are wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice can afford to give away products and hope to recoup money via concerts, he states. 
          As discussed in The Starfish and the Spider, the music business is coming back to its original decentralized structure. I’m talking about 1890, where musicians didn’t belong to any label and earned their money by playing live. In my opinion, music has become a commodity and every song can be acquired for free sooner or later. Especially if it is a popular song. Fighting makes the situation worse. Napster was shut down and eMule emerged. Try to shut down BitTorrent and something else will be created.

Remarkable Packaging
“As for CDs, I would suggest that presentation matters a lot,” writes Abbas Alvi, Marketing & Sales Manager at Ooober.com and states the example of Tool’s “10,000 Days” CD, which comes in a unique 3D cover with built-in 3D lenses. Abbas concludes, “I know people who had the complete digital collection of that album but still ordered that CD because it was worth it.” Marcus Turner, President/CEO at Alien8 Entertainment, wrote, “I say develop a highly innovative packaging and fill it with much more content. Basically, the ultimate fan experience.” He continues, “Fans want to know everything about their favorite artist and I’m willing to bet that they’ll pay top dollar for it. But it can’t be packaged in the same boring way.” Sam Katz , Co-owner and Vice President at Geniass Productions suggested adding a DVD and selling it for $10. That’s what many artists have been doing for the past 5 or so years and in my case it worked for a while. Consumers kept buying those physical albums, because of the DVD. Not anymore, though.
          Packaging has to be remarkable, because otherwise there is no need to get a CD twice the price of a digital download. The motto here is Worth Making A Remark About. And thinking about Seth Godin’s Free Prize Inside idea, make the CD packaging fashionable or fun or surprising or delightful or sad. It has to deliver something extra worth seeking out and buying. Since the packaging rarely delivers more of what we were buying in the first place, it has to arouse the feeling of wanting to possess that very CD and wanting to brag about it.

The Business Model
Marco Monfils, Owner-manager at Riverside Talent, sees only a few alternatives for the lost income of physical record/CD sales, 1) sponsor support (as Larry Weintraub wrote in his Brand Sponsored Music article), 2) government support, 3) fan support, 4) personal budget. Godfrey Meyer, Gm3 Productions, says, “You can no longer have just the music, you need a WHOLE picture from software / hardware / websites and then the music is just the reason for people to be there and keep coming back.”
          And that is where the music industry is still struggling finding the right business model for the Internet age. I don’t think there is a “one idea fits all” business model, but thanks to the Web 2.0 bands and labels can get in touch with their followers easily and shape their business model according to their customers wants and needs. They can work something out that makes their fans happy and brings in revenue for sustainable growth. Time will tell, and case studies such as NIN, Hawthorne Heights, and Julia Nunes, show that no matter what genre, the Net Generation is ready to spend money on music, but not necessarily for simple physical or digital music.

Thank you, everyone who participated in the discussion on LinkedIn.

As posted on NeoDMC.com. 

We all know about ghost writers on Twitter and people who pretend to be someone they are not online. Even viral videos that can be found on YouTube are not necessarily real. This is why being authentic is increasingly becoming a crucial part of who you are. Being the real you is what will make potential business partners, early adopters of your products, and fans want to connect with you and your brand.

Authenticity is the key word I have been encountering most in regard to branding lately. Blogger Michelle Tripp let her disappointment out in a post when she discovered that Marketing-guru Guy Kawasaki’s updates on Twitter are not all written by Guy himself (read here). Even Heidi Klum tells her soon-to-be top models in her Germany’s Next Top Model TV-show that they have to pave their road to success with authenticity.Kevin Kelly said it best in his Better Than Free article, “You might be able to [get a service or product] for free, but even if you don’t need a manual, you might like to be sure it is bug free, reliable, and warranted. You’ll pay for authenticity.“

YouTube has become my first choice when searching, promoting, and discussing music. In the past six months many videos have been suggested to me. The ones that got my attention were not the videos that were made with a large budget, not at all. I kept viewing the videos that were made by amateur musicians without any budget. You may ask: Why? My answer: Because those videos are authentic and genuinely honest. 

Sam Hart got more than 2 million views on his Mario Kart Love Song within two months. All you can see in the video is a guy playing his guitar, singing a great love song with a reference to pop culture. And it was recorded in one take. You cannot get more real than that other than playing live on a stage. But you won’t be able to reach out to a 2 million audience then. Or, everyone who makes those wonderful ukulele video-songs. All of them are authentic, honest, and happy to share their music with the world. Sure, the videos are raw, but honest. There is also no budget involved. I am convinced that many active ukulele artists on YouTube would be able to record a world-class album with the right production team and a budget of only a couple of thousand dollars, and I am confident that profit would be made. There is obviously a niche market for that kind of music and followers are very eager to know more about it and to be involved.

My friend Theo and I have been discussing this topic on and off. We both agree that authenticity is key to build a lasting and nurturing relationship with anyone online. One issue Theo always addresses is that if you want people to watch your authentic videos on YouTube, read your updates on Twitter, and read your blog posts on WordPress, you need to be remarkable. He claims that a one-take video of an acoustic cover of Tool will not make an upcoming metal band popular on YouTube. At least not just like that. I agree, but many acoustic covers of different metal bands will increase traffic on that band’s channel and eventually find fans that keep coming back and finally start spreading the word. As we know by know, a video’s viral potential increases with its uniqueness. Nonetheless, it is important to start somewhere.

Take it one step at the time until one day you produce that very unique and authentic video that will pave the way to your online success.

As posted on NeoDMC.com.

Employee fired because of Facebook

Nationale Suisse, a Swiss insurance company, can be rather narrow-minded when it comes to their employees using social media on their sick-days.

Nationale Suisse fired one of their employees in Basel/Switzerland, because she used Facebook at home while suffering from a migraine attack. Read details here in German and in English. The 30-year old employee said she was not able to work on a PC because it gave her a headache and she had to stay in the dark. Hence, she took a sick-day and went home, where she took care of herself and used her iPhone to access Facebook. According to an article in 20 Minuten, labor law expert Matthias Häuptli sais that employees who are sick do not need to stay in bed at all times. Using the Internet is like reading a newspaper. Therefore, firing an employee because she used Facebook on a sick-day is arguable. 

My take: How did Nationale Suisse know that their employee was surfing Facebook? Apparently, the woman added a stranger to her Facebook friends, which after the incident disappeared. On second thought, she assumes it was someone from Nationale Suisse spying on her. After all the crazy spying that happened in large European corporations last  year, I can well imagine that Nationale Suisse embraced such a tactic.

As we have read and seen all over the news, many companies decided to block social media channels for their workers, to keep them less distracted. I don’t agree with that approach but can live with it. But if it is true that some companies decide to spy on their workforce outside of the office in such a sneaky way, I would never ever want to work for such a company ever again, would not want to buy any products or services from them, and would recommend to my acquaintances not to engage in any way with that company. 

This might sound harsh, but as my friend Garr Reynolds discussed in a blog post, How can I trust you if you don’t trust me?

After years and years of playing bass in bands and performing on stage and on records, I found a new way to express myself with music, through multi-window video-songs on YouTube. Funny how it all started (read it here).

By now, I have to admit that I get much more satisfaction from playing on the digital stage that YouTube offers compared to playing offline. Sure, playing live is a rush no matter what the size of your audience is. I played everything from audiences of 4 listeners to a sea of people. Nonetheless, I have never been closer to an audience than now. In the past 6 months more than 60,000 people viewed my ukulele and bass videos, which in my niche world is a very large number. I have been able to improve my music skills and work on my creative attitude thanks to the love-and-hate comments I have received on YouTube and other social media platforms.

In addition, virtual collaborations with fellow YouTubers, like the You and I cover with Jason in California, Kelsey in New York, and me in Switzerland, can be very rewarding. You get to play with musicians you have never met and you might never ever meet in your life and you create something very innovative, a virtual band. Check out my favorite virtual band, here, Virtually Rush. Playing in a virtual band will give you the possibility to reach a far wider audience than by creating something yourself. Each musician can tap the following of the other members and hopefully find new followers.

I’m not suggesting not to play offline. Club gigs (usually) pay you good money if you attract a large audience. But if you can reach an audience of 100,000 with niche music in just a few months, like some YouTubers do, you might be able to fill clubs and bars with 400 seats easier after playing online. Especially if your followers are all into you.

Here you are my 20th multi-window YouTube video, The Big Bang Theory Theme by the Barenaked Ladies:

Ghostwriting on Twitter is like,..

Michelle Tripp’s blog post Ghost Tweeting is the Milli Vanilli of Web 3.0 gave me a lot of thinking. She unfollowed Guy Kawasaki (@guykawasaki) on Twitter because, in her words,

Guy Kawasaki used to get it. But when he announced last week at #SESNY that he has three ghost tweeters writing under his Twitter account, I realized somewhere along the way, he lost it. If he can’t see the incredible value of a genuine, unfiltered Twitter persona and the abomination that is a ghosted account, then my friends the man no longer gets it. 

This reminded me of an article by Seth Godin that stated,

Marketers like to talk about transparency and authenticity. I think for most people, most of the time, we care a lot more about the effect and use of a product or service and less about who made it and why. We chose Converse because they get us a date, and we don’t change brands just cause Nike owns them now. Except for when we do. When we feel deceived or tricked, the game can change, and rapidly.

Guy Kawasaki exposed himself to the topic of ghostwriting and openly named his ghostwriters and the reason why he hired them, which should actually make it okay. Nonetheless, I feel that ghostwriting on Twitter is like pretending to have played a wonderful guitar solo on a classic song when you have not! My friend Sam (@Magganpice) asked me through Twitter, “Do u think tweeting for customers is bad? Is there more than one way for brands to use Twitter?” My answer in less than 140 characters was, “Ghosttweeting for brands like Coke/Nike is inevitable, but brands with a face, such as @GuyKawasaki, need to be authentic,” which is more or less what Michelle wrote in her blog post.

The Magic of Social Media

I don’t argue that big profit machines such as Coca Cola, Nike, Reckitt Benckiser or P&G have to put a face onto their Twitter accounts and be all human, because that is not who they are. But brands such as Guy Kawasaki (@guykawasaki), Jeff Howe (@Crowdsourcing), Garr Reynolds (@presentationzen), or Julia Roy (@juliaroy) have a genuine human face and I want to read their words written by them, because I imagine them typing those tweets on a keyboard or on an iPhone, and I would be disappointed to find out it isn’t so. If I would have to find out that Coca Cola or Reckitt Benckiser hired one person to tweet with their name for the company, I would want to follow them with more interest, because I would know it’s authentic and there is an actual chance for real interaction.

A blog post on triiibes.com by Mary McKnight discusses the sociology of being cool and popular and how to use it to be an online rockstar and made me realize, once again, that it is essential in today’s social media world to be authentic and simply be yourself. Fans and followers picture the person they are following and take their words for something special. Now imagine how a fan feels when she has to find out that someone else wrote the words she was reading so carefully. A whole picture falls apart and disappointment is immense, and once the trust of a follower is gone, it will be very, very hard to reestablish a strong relationship.